A place to let me write and help me to remember things that I will otherwise forget. A place to reflect at what I have done so far. A place for family and friends to know what have I done all this time.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Shanghai Trip Part One: Day One and Day Two

On the 30th Aug, went back to Brunei with yuan in a hurry... Din managed to pack some stuff that I wanted to bring to Shanghai....Packed all of my stuff into the suitcase that night.

After enduring two days of boredom, finally, flew off to Shanghai using Royal Brunei Airline Airbus A319. The tour group consists of 39 people including the tour leader. The flight was delayed so instead of arriving in Shanghai at 11.10pm, we arrived at 12 midnight.

I guess one of the good points of following a tour group is that the tour leader will prepare everything for you. In order to enter China, one need to fill in three forms (Entry form, Health form, and Custom Declaration form).

I didnt get any sleep during the flight. Too bad that I have watched X-Men 3 before. Otherwise, I would have really enjoyed the movie.

We were greeted by our tour guide at the airport who brought us to our bus. Mum wanted to sit at the most front possible row so we ended up staring at the tour guide the whole trip to the place we would be having our supper. A lot of pressure having him paying so much attention to us le. Fortunately, the next day, we changed our seating to the left row ( we were at the right side before this) so we didnt have to endure the tour guide staring at us all the time. After sometime, I discovered that it is still the same. Maybe he find my mum and I give him better response when he talk. :P

The tour guide's surname is Ma, so, he has us calling him 'Siaw Ma.' Apart from that, the bus driver is called 'Si Fu', not Uncle driver or whatsoever.

We had our supper at a fast food restaurant called "Yong He Da Wang." It is a chinese fast food chain restaurant and is a competitor to KFC and McD. Mum and I had Salty SoyBean, Sweet Soy Bean, one plates of Yau Char Kuai (super huge ones), and Siaw Long Pau. I enjoyed the Sweet Soy Bean a lot cause it is so much nicer than the ones in Miri but the Yau Char Kuai is not nicer la. The open market ones are tastier.... :PAfter the supper, we went to our hotel, Bao Long Hotel. After getting ready, I finally slept at 3am. Because we arrived late and slept late, the tour leader got the tour guide to delay our departure time for tomorrow schedule to 9.30am.

We had breakfast buffet every morning for the next five days. I am not very sure why but I dont really feel like eating a lot of stuff in the morning. One thing I really enjoyed is that when the breakfast buffet provide yogurt. I drank quite a lot of yogurt. Only Bao Long Hotel and Holiday Inn Downtown provide that. The breakfast at HangZhou is of the poorest quality compared with other breakfast buffets. There wasnt much choice and the place is so warm because it is on the top floor. SuZhou's breakfast buffet is also of poorer quality.

We departed Shanghai to go to XiTang to visit the water town. MI3 was filmed there, where Tom Cruise running across the corridor screaming for people to get out of the way. Even before I saw the signboard to verify this fact, I knew it is the place when I saw the view of the place. The weather was so warm, almost like our humid weather in Miri. Mum saw this shop selling Smelly Tofu and went in to purchase some. Honestly, I didnt find it smelly at all. It surprised me to find people who walked past saying that it is so smelly. By the time we walked out the water town area (which is a preserved area by the Government), it was time for lunch. We went to have our lunch at this nearby restaurant. We had 12 dishes and we couldnt finish the food. What a waste.

We left XiTang and headed for HangZhou. At HangZhou, we went to Yue Fei's Memorial. As a person who never studied Chinese History, I dont know who is this Yue Fei. Fortunately the tour guide explained everything. I seriously think that my chinese has improved a lot and I begin to know a lot more about Chinese History. Anyway, YueFei is a loyal general who was prosecuted for treason. In order to pay the respect to him, a memorial is built. When YueFei was still young and preparing to become a soldier during the war time, his mum tattooed four chinese character on his back to remind him to be loyal to his country. He fought for his country and conquered a lot of lands for his country. But it seems that loyal people in the ancient time were always prosecuted by the King under the influence of the greedy people. Yue Fei are one of these kesian loyal people lor...

After the YueFei's Memorial, we went to Lei Feng Pagoda. The original Lei Feng Pagoda has collapsed and a new pagoda is built on the top of the old pagoda. The new pagoda was equipped with elevator and escalator to ease people to climb up the pagoda. At the top of the pagoda, we can enjoy the view of HangZhou's West Lake. It was so refeshing to be on the top of the pagoda because it was so warm at the ground level. The story of the Lei Feng Pagoda is of the White Snake Tale. It was said that the White Snake was trapped under the pagoda after she was captured. White Snake fell in love with a scholar called Xu Shien and so did the Xu Shien with White Snake. They got married but Human and Monster cannot be together. So they are separated and White Snake was trapped under the pagoda. MediaCorp has a drama series made for this tale. :P

After the visit to the Pagoda, it was time for dinner. Again, it was a 12-dishes meal.

We went to our hotel for the night. The tour guide told us that we could go to shop at the nearby shopping centre and we did. My mood was spoiled by mum's endless chatter about me being too fat and me not being able to find anything wearable to buy. I was so miserable that I wanted to go back to the hotel to sleep.

That is for Day Two. Day One is actually Day Two because we arrived late.

I still have so many things to write but it is late already. I have organised the photos of my trip but I need time to write the post le. Tomorrow la.